Brown University

The movement to reexamine university histories had a milestone in the 2003 decision by Brown University President Ruth Simmons to create a committee to provide a “thoughtful inquiry using intellectual resources” into the historical relationship between Brown and slavery. The decision followed campus unrest over the slavery reparations debate and what committee member Prof. Brenda Allen characterizes as a “place of tension,” with students in particular pushing for an acknowledgement of past injustice.

In Slavery and Justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice (2006), the Brown committee detailed the school’s broad and deep ties to an industry that permeated every aspect of Rhode Island life: ship builders and seamstresses, coopers and tax collectors, grocers, blacksmiths and bakers. Among the school’s first financial supporters was Esek Hopkins, hired by the slave-owning and trading Brown brothers to captain the “Sally” on a voyage to West Africa in 1764. “At least 109 of the 196 Africans that Hopkins purchased on behalf of the Browns perished, some in a failed insurrection, the balance through disease, suicide, and starvation,” the report noted. The Brown brothers later split over the issue of slavery, mirroring the debate that would eventually divide the United States.

Comprised of faculty, administrators and students, the Brown University committee worked with students who contributed research on materials in the University archives. The committee also sponsored town hall meetings and a series of lectures and conferences, to engage both a university and community audience. During their four-year process, they regularly shared their findings with the public. For Allen, “No one is better prepared than the university to engage in a rigorous intellectual process related to these issues. Recommendations emanating from the process should keep in mind that the primary roles of the university is to educate and further knowledge production.”

The committee’s final report included robust recommendations: tell the truth in all its complexity; commission relevant memorials; create a center for continuing research on slavery and justice; maintain high ethical standards in regard to investments and gifts; expand opportunities at Brown for those disadvantaged by the legacies of slavery and the slave trade; use the resources of the University to help ensure a quality education for the children of Rhode Island; and to appoint a committee to monitor implementation. Many recommendations have been implemented, and the university continues to develop and deepen its commitment to exploring this past.